pepper and salt by Ipsita Banerjee

pepper and salt

Ipsita Banerjee

My mother used to love pepper, my father Teased her about it, said it made her dark Dark she was, freshly ground on our lives Emitting flavour and spice. The bite that we bit into And sometimes gagged. My sister Saw the orangutang and announced That it had become black eating pepper “just like Ma”, everyone laughed. I don’t remember but the story Lost nothing in the telling. I like to think I remember; the zoo, the blue frock I wore.. Was it blue? How would I know? In my mind sprinkles of black and white Muddle with memories of tiny hands Reaching out, asking to be picked up, Is this then my first memory? I pick out Whole pepper corns from my food Even now, casting them aside Like the seeds of a poisoned fruit.

Blackness sprinkled our lives like all others Catechisms wailed outside the door Asking to be let in. I leapt unhindered By whatever waited outside. The darkest Day was when father died. The light Was cruel, daylight burned and the nights Were blacker still. The memories I spawned

And stole from others (I liked to say I was the one who screamed outside the cage How could I when I was the one inside?) Became truths, one by one, in black and in white While with tiny feet encased in red boots I remember clearly those black ants I stomped upon As though my life depended on it I thought I could stomp my way out of the cage But fell as unseen chains breached my soul I didn’t ask for this, I asked for nothing. I find myself returning to the cage where it all began, Searching among abandoned shelves For the pepper and salt of my life.